INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla. — Hospitals across the world canceled appointments and delayed procedures because of the global Microsoft IT outage Friday. WPTV checked in with all hospitals and first responders on the Treasure Coast to see if they were affected.
The Cleveland Clinic issued a statement to WPTV saying that due to the outage, some technology they use was currently impacted, but patient care was not affected, including elective surgeries and procedures.
"We are continuing to provide care at all locations," read the company's statement.
HCA Florida hospitals also issued a statement to WPTV stating neither their technology nor their patient care was directly impacted by the outage.
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"We are working with our vendors to understand any issues they may be facing," read HCA Florida's statement.
That's not the case for Indian River County, whose 911 call system went down from about 2 a.m. to 4:45 a.m., according to Ryan Lloyd, the county's emergency operations coordinator.
The outage affected the sheriff's office along with Vero Beach and Sebastian police stations, all of which have their own dispatch systems.
Lloyd said all calls that came in during that outage were immediately rerouted to a separate phone that serves as their backup in situations like this. He told WPTV reporter Kate Hussey he is not yet aware of any calls that were missed during the outage.
He also said the county's text-to-911 system was fully operational the entire time.
"Indian River County Department of Emergency Services shall continue to monitor this incident and we will ensure that 911 calls are received," Lloyd said.
Sheriff Eric Flowers echoed Lloyd's assurance that calls were rerouted and not missed during the outage but told Hussey that coming out of the experience, he feels getting back online might have been easier had all three agencies' dispatch systems been under one umbrella.
"This is just sort of another time that sort of exposes some of those vulnerabilities," Flowers said. "When you don't have a single unit, one organization handling it when it's spread over multiple units, you encounter multiple problems."
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"Is that something you're looking at potentially doing in the future to streamline the process?" Hussey asked Lloyd.
"We're always open to different ideas and innovations that can occur," Lloyd said."We just want the community to know that we're diligently monitoring this situation, and we are going to ensure public safety need are met."
Both Martin and St. Lucie counties said their 911 systems were not affected by the outage.
Port St. Lucie police told Hussey the agency has had some issues with the Microsoft update outage, but it has not impeded their response to emergency calls for service or the records department.
WPTV also called about 12-15 local medical providers on the Treasure Coast. Almost all told Hussey they were operating as normal.
Some viewers told WPTV that your appointments at Quest Diagnostics were rescheduled or canceled, so we contacted the company, who released the following statement:
"Due to the global information outage that occurred this morning, Quest is taking swift action to respond, recover and restore our operations. Our Patient Services are operating with reduced capacity so you may experience longer wait and service times. Our Customer Contact teams are currently unavailable. We appreciate your patience as we work toward returning to normal operations."
